MongoMcMichaelI normally like Jon Stewart. I don't get what he's saying here. 'Morning Joe' is somehow less of a news show because it lists its corporate sponsors at the outset and hosts a segment explaining it's latest corporate alliance? How is acknowledgment of sponsors detrimental to the program's core message?

To wit, does 'the Daily Show's breaks for commercials take away from its observations as a comedy program?

Scarborough is basically enacting a Billy Mays commercial, including a sycophantic interview ("You can't be telling me I get all that and the cleaning kit for 19.95?!?"), in what is supposed to be a real news show. Their self-conscious references were in no way sarcasm, but an attempt to play off how much it denigrated the very idea of their being actual journalists. John Stewart is a comedian who makes fun of the news, on a network with crank-dialing puppets and Carlos Mencia.

If you are holding the two to similar standards, you are proving John's point. They are both jokers, only one is intentionally so.

IrishWhiskeyAlso I would seriously hope you could see the distinction between commercial breaks (which no one is objecting to) with commercial content presented by newscasters as if it were news.

MongoMcMichaelI'm honestly not trolling, here. I figured I better mention that prior to my next response.

Scarborough is news, but he's opinion news. He gets a panel of various conservatives, liberals, and independent thinkers to talk about their ideas regarding various news stories. He gets people like Pat Buchanan, Peggy Noonan, Terry McCaullife [spelling possibly incorrect], Howard Dean, and Jesse Ventura to talk about various issues. How does holding a fluff piece about his newest corporate advertisers detract from the more serious news stories? That is, of course, unless you count his roundtables on celebrity scandals and 'American Idol' news as stories with equal gravitas.

Artistically speaking, it's the same as saying, "Jon Stewart's show is subsidized by Pepsi, so his sarcastic comedic comments really don't have so much bite as someone without the same sponsorship." Why does corporate sponsorship have more veracity when it sponsors the news than it does when it sponsors a program that criticizes the news?

posertom5 for mongo. Succinctly put (except for "artistically speaking." What could that possibly mean?).

I've always been uncomfortable with Jon's deflection, that "We're not real news, we're comedy." That argument ignores why people watch the daily show, which is for 22 minutes of truth-telling: someone calling everyone else's bullshit. Jon doesn't really write jokes any more anyway. He just shows ridiculous clips, and then pauses until the clip gets a laugh. Jon Stewart sleeps easy, and it's because he knows his show is actually better commentary than any other commentary out there.

I think news sponsorships are scarier than sitcom sponsorships. But daily show sponsorships are, for the same reason, that is, that we trust them even more, worse than any other kind of sponsorship out there.

Browsing the "why the terrorists hate us tag," I feel pretty sure sarcasm is, for our time, a better way of truth-telling than the news. It's no wonder I'm more offended by Jon's hypocrisy than by 20 pundit sellouts.

Busby BerkeleyStewart's hypocracy? The Daily Show doesn't bring the advertising into the show. People are reacting to the integration of advertising with the CONTENT of Morning Joe. Everyone gets that MSNBC and Comedy Central aren't PBS.

I also get that Scarborough is an opinion show, which means that it's even stupider to show that his opinion of something can be purchased.

And worst of all is Scarborough throwing Starbucks under the bus when he's criticized for the sponsorship -- that's the part of this video I found to be hilarious.

chairsforcheaphey uh.... could you weirdos go get your own website and leave us alone?

chairsforcheapnot you bubsy. Postertom, you realize you just 5 starred a guy who wanted this video to get 1 star, right?

memedumpsterTo put it simply, if Starbucks put rat poison in all their lattes and killed 2500 people, Joe Scarborough now has ten million dollars worth of incentive to keep his mouth shut. A network can piss off their sponsors if they like and get new ones, but an individual personality can tank his career biting the hand that feeds him. This is not journalism or comedy.

MongoMcMichaelMemedumpster: In the very specific hypothetical scenario you just posed, I don't 'Morning Joe' could get away with not mentioning a situation that important. Typically speaking, companies run away from scandals, and that includes news/opinion companies (e.g. Don Imus). So, if Joe Scarborough pissed off his corporate sponsor, the show would just go back to the way it was prior to the Starbucks sponsorship. Either that, or Dunkin' Donuts would make a bid.

Bubsy: Why should I care if advertising is brought into the show? They did a segment acknowledging the change and talking to someone from Starbucks, and now we'll just see the logo every now and then. If the show devolves into frappe fappery, I can simply change the channel. Furthermore, Scarborough throws everybody under the bus; that's kind of his gimmick. Half of the show is him collaborating with Pat Buchanan and Willie Geist to make Mika Brzezinski's life miserable.

Michael Houser: You have an excellent point, and one form of advertising is significantly less pleasant than the other. However, I don't think people are going to tune into their morning opinion-analysis program to see people continually shill coffee. However, if a big corporation invests ten million dollars in some show, I don't think tweaking the logo and showing a cup invalidates the show's ability to function.

zatojonesThere is no such thing as an "opinion news" show. News is not about opinion, it's about facts. The fact that Scarborough continues to insist that he's a journalist while really he's nothing more than a talk show host is bad enough, but to bring product placement and sponsor ass-kissing into your pretend news show and yet still claim you're an independent and objective journalist is a total dick move. That is why Stewart, an open and avowed comedian, makes fun of him and why it's doubly funny that Scarborough responds as if they're both claiming to be in the same line of work.

Michael HouserOK, this is a very simple distinction.
You might have a show that is sponsored by Pepsi in the form of commercials. That is standard. What turns it into full corporate anus-licking is if, during your show, you and your cohosts are drinking Pepsi the entire time, and talking about how fucking awesome Pepsi is.
Both types of sponsorship kinda suck, but one is significantly more hideous than the other.

sosageFive for people having a difficult time grasping what is so wrong with the Morning Joe situation, yet so right about this segment.

BortThe damnedest thing about this is, the more I think about it, the less offended I am by Scarborough's more overt whoring. At least it's honest and right out there; when Scarborough is just reciting Republican talking points like they're the product of independent thought, that's the greater feat of whoredom.

It's always worth remembering that, when Joe Scarborough was in Congress, an intern was found dead in his office of a blow to the head, and it was never investigated. (Meanwhile, Gary Condit was the target of accusation after accusation, with nothing whatsoever to connect him to Chandra Levy's disappearance.) And the guy even joked about it on Don Imus one time.

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010808Klausutis.html

To be fair, there's no evidence that Scarborough had anything to do with Lori Klausutis's death either; I'm not accusing him of murder. The point is how the media made for damn sure that Scarborough enjoyed an absolute minimum of coverage over this; they essentially ran interference for him, and he even ended up working for MSNBC. It sure is convenient how one hand washes the other between the media and the GOP.

Hooper_XThis is the future of news media. In 2018, the anchors for Yahoo! Presents the CBS Evening News Fueled by Pepsi and Powered by Duracell will dress like goddamned NASCAR drivers.

(of course, this is how EVERYTHING worked in the olden days of TV - you go back to the 50s and the anchors would literally stop in the middle of the broadcast and tell you how great fucking Maypo was. I don't even know what Maypo IS.)